There is a huge craze of the sandbox style games and the (infinite worlds). I don't see the huge appeal. In all honesty I can't play minecraft for longer then 10 minutes as it becomes boring. I have played this game and do enjoy it. It is not just the mincraft style but actually has crap to do. But the world generation will always be flatter then someone actually created by hand. Which is better an infinite number of really crappy procedural dungeons or one beautifully crafted by hand? I am not saying that all procedural content is crap but it just cannot compare to a world made by hand.

Thats absolutely right, but creating every dungeon etc by hand takes a lot of time and is not always the best solution, because sometimes you dont want to have a fixed storyline or a world limit, because it also limits the time the players can play.It is always a question of what kind of game it is.You would (mostly) not use a generator for a story-based rpg, but also not create premade maps for a MC/Terraria like game...

There is a huge craze of the sandbox style games and the (infinite worlds). I don't see the huge appeal. In all honesty I can't play minecraft for longer then 10 minutes as it becomes boring. I have played this game and do enjoy it. It is not just the mincraft style but actually has crap to do. But the world generation will always be flatter then someone actually created by hand. Which is better an infinite number of really crappy procedural dungeons or one beautifully crafted by hand? I am not saying that all procedural content is crap but it just cannot compare to a world made by hand.

You should try Path of Exile. It uses a procedural level system, but has a playset for each level. This makes the levels random enough to be replayable, while controlled enough to be familiar and fun.

I personally love the idea of Minecraft, but I don't play it anymore because I'm burned out on it. Procedural terrain has always been very cool to me, and to be honest with you I prefer noise to hand crafted terrain just because of the randomness you get out of it. Now, of course every game isn't suited towards randomly generated terrain, but a few really are quite amazing with it, and I can keep playing the game over and over and get almost a new experience every time. I think its less with the terrain and more about what you can do with it. Minecraft is fun, but after a while building the same building and gathering the same resources and fighting the same mobs becomes old. I want to find a game where the content is also randomly generated, as well as the terrain so you truly have a unique experience every time you play. I'm sure there are plenty of games out there like that, but I don't game anymore besides the occasional match of Battlefield

I would love to get this "unique" experience. I can't think of any procedural generated game where the procedural part produced anything reasonable without an insane amount of tweaking. You cannot create hundreds of hours of gameplay with some magic algorithm. Sure it could take a year of real life time to traverse the land but that does not make the traversing fun. This is all subjective of course and I do not judge people for liking that stuff as people like COD

I think the best games with high level of re-playability are open world games where there is a bunch to do and many ways to do it (not restriction the player) or arcade games where the game play is simple but fun. For some reason Bloons TD is stupid simple but very fun. Tetris is simple nothing complicated but very re-playable. The are not all RPG or FPS but more of styles. FarCry on here looks very fun. Sandbox is great but players HAVE to have some direction other wise there is no point. Minecraft has got to be the edge of the boundary and I think much of the popularity is due to a hipster like following.

Starbound has different planets which is why I really like it. It is not one type of land but many. Minecraft has biomes but they only go so far.

Which is better an infinite number of really crappy procedural dungeons or one beautifully crafted by hand? I am not saying that all procedural content is crap but it just cannot compare to a world made by hand.

The dungeons aren't 'generated'. They are crafted by hand, just 'placed randomly' in the world. That's why villages and dungeons look so amazing in this game!

EDIT: One problem with a non-generated version is that I've already seen some dungeons twice, which makes it a little bit repetitive. But I'm not sure whether randomly placing the rooms vs. not doing that would help with that point.

EDIT 2: Btw, the team is aware of the problem that generated stuff just doesn't look that cool. They have for example handcrafted terrain structures that are placed in the world to make the world look nicer, so you have an arc or similar, which you wouldn't get with generated terrain

Terraria is a clone of minecraft - at least its a little different being 2Dstarbound and craft the world and all that bullshit are just clones of that again

think about which games you will remember in the future... certainly not all these lackluster copycat gamesstarbound is like terraria..... IN SPAAACE

Although i agree, this should come into play when actually describing a game. You must remember that minecraft itself was based off of another game. Saying that Starbound is like Terraria may be true but it shouldn't be seen as clone, rather it should be seen for its special features and acctual gameplay. In summary, starbound is starbound and terraria is terraria and minecraft is minecraft

Terraria is a clone of minecraft - at least its a little different being 2Dstarbound and craft the world and all that bullshit are just clones of that again

Totally not your opinion here.

Minecraft is like Inifiniminer... ON THE SURFAAAAACE.

Seriously, you should think about what 'clone' actually means. It doesn't mean 'a game of the same genre', but 'exactly the same game copied'. So for example there are clones of minecraft, that really have a pickaxe, the 3x3 crafting grid, etc. But then there are games like Starbound, which build up on the same genre like minecraft (which opened it up to the gaming world the first time) (the genre being ~ sandbox grid-based games, "cube worlds") and built up upon and improved games like Terraria, took ideas from other games, mixed in some good pixel art, good ideas and new concepts. Have you already tried out Starbound?

I want to know how original the games are that you made

No offense, though, I just want to show you that they and how they make games isn't very different from you and how you make games

One last thing: The lead developer of Starbound is/was part of the Re-Logic Team that developed Terraria

There is a huge craze of the sandbox style games and the (infinite worlds). I don't see the huge appeal. In all honesty I can't play minecraft for longer then 10 minutes as it becomes boring. I have played this game and do enjoy it. It is not just the mincraft style but actually has crap to do.

The beauty behind games like Terraria and Starbound is that there actually IS lots of crap to do - they're actual games in stead of somewhat of a game that grew out of a tech demo. IMO Starbound is the same leap up in gameplay from Terraria as Terraria was to Minecraft; the game looks quite awesome especially because it just feels a whole lot less randomized. I'll be playing it for most of 2014 probably, just as soon as I've completely explored the massive Terraria 1.2 update.

As a game that is less sandbox and more game, consider looking at Steamworld Dig.

Well, I shall soon join the group of ya'll who're playing this game. But it won't be for several days. And then the Ludum Dare shall drag me away to the delight of attempting to get a game done in two days!

I want to know how original the games are that you made No offense, though, I just want to show you that they and how they make games isn't very different from you and how you make games

That has nothing to do with it and is the mark of someone with weak arguments - even a hairstylist can criticize games or game design.

I havent created any actual real games. If you're talking about those that I have posted here on JGO, yes, these ARE clones where I looked at specific games while creating them.If your game design high concept and gameplay description match - its hard to argue otherwise.

One last thing: The lead developer of Starbound is/was part of the Re-Logic Team that developed Terraria

Interesting that you think this helps YOUR case, because I think you just made my point.Example: Bayonetta is a Devil May Cry clone / sequel. It was also made by the same people. I fucking love Bayonetta and Devil May Cry but that doesnt change the fact. At least Bayonetta changes everything possible without changing the formula.

You may thin a "clone" is overly derogatory - but its not really. Then doom first came out all shooters were called doom clones, even by the press; when mario first came out many platformers where mario clones.But the truth still remains that a lackluster shooter contributes nothing to the game industry and is made purely for money.

Counter-example: Terraria and craft the world are clones. Minecraft and Gmod are the same genre, but quite different. See the difference ?Path of Exile (which was enjoyable) IS diablo.

The point is, I find it tragic if you make a make just because you CAN make a clone, you just want to have your own and bring nothing new to the table; Or you do it just for money.My games are clones, but those are student projects and they never got enough time to blossom =D

Just be a little more critical towards games and movies - or else EVERYTHING will look the same soonOver 90 % of all hollywood movies made each year are either sequels or remakes.As the gaming industry gets bigger call of duty and minecraft clones are our biggest problem...

There is no such genre. Name 3 games what were satisfy this description that came out before minecraft.

Infiniminer and Dwarf Fortress. These were also the inspiration of Minecraft. The nice way of mixing game elements of both games together is what makes Minecraft so interesting and unique.Why 'came out before Minecraft'? Why shouldn't Minecraft be able to open up a new genre?

Counter-example: Terraria and craft the world are clones. Minecraft and Gmod are the same genre, but quite different. See the difference ?Path of Exile (which was enjoyable) IS diablo.

I still think Terraria and Craft the world are both still different from Minecraft. I understand what 'same genre' means for you, now, but I still think our ideas of clones are different.

What Terraria is in perspective to Minecraft:Terraria is all about combat and exploration, whereas Minecraft is all about building stuff and mining. Terraria is a completely different game, because it has bosses, stuff like weapon and armor stats and aims at building up a good combination of stat-increasing accessories. Minecraft is almost not at all about combat. It has 4 kinds of swords and thats it. Almost nothing like player stats except for armor and the dungeon / loot chests are mostly about resources not armor / weapons. No special effects on weapons nor armor.

What Craft the world is in perspective to Minecraft:Craft the world (from what it looks like) is not about playing a specific character but mixes in the elements of RTS' where you control units to build up stuff. It also mixes in a little bit of Tower defense, judging from the videos online.

A 'Clone' for me is a game which has exactly the same game elements as the game it was cloned from. So there are almost 1:1 mario clones (for example 'Super Tux' for linux), that simply use different sprites or drawing mechanics and include new levels.

For me a game is not a clone anymore, when it includes new game mechanics. So Craft the world is not a Minecraft clone, because it includes the 'control multiple units and give commands' and 'tower defense strategy' mechanics. Just like Terraria has the new combat mechanics.

It's always interesting when new, original game mechanics are found, but it's also a skill to be able to create games with mixed game mechanics, taken from different games. Notch's idea was to combine nice game elements from two games together to create something like Minecraft.

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